A Picture-Perfect Valentine’s Day

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day: Walgreens has won my heart. Well, along with these two:

There is a Walgreens located approximately 14 blocks from my house at the corner of Happy and Healthy (which happens to coincide with Walnut and Dixieland), and you have no idea how relieved I was when this became reality. I’m a pretty big fan of the new Balance Rewards program, as well – certain items are discounted (in addition to advertised sales) with a Balance Rewards card AND they earn points which are available as additional discounts. And, no need to carry a card.

Do you remember the 90s (and surrounding decades) when we 1) took pictures 2) rushed to the nearest photo developer to process them 3) entertained ourselves with some bogus errand 4) rushed back into said developer to retrieve our prints 5) pouted in the parking lot when they were delayed and 6) ultimately walked back to our vehicles and sat in them creepily looking at 427 photos from our recent vacation/personal coup/graduation/friend’s party?

Sigh no more.

The Walgreens Mobile App is amazing. Upload photos to the site and bask in the glory of creating. Let’s say you are less than two hours away from attending a family event. You have done zilch in the way of preparation. No problem: upload any randomly acceptable recent photograph, and in less than an hour you are golden.

I’ve always been a fan of Walgreens and was hugely excited when they started opening in northwest Arkansas. Walgreens has always been ahead of the curve with user-friendly tools such as phone refills and a very helpful website, so naturally I jumped right in when their apps became available for the iPad and smart phones! Recently, I even installed the apps on my neighbor’s smart phone and tablet, and now she skims all the ads and I run into her enthusiastically shopping our neighborhood Walgreens – another convert!

When it comes to Valentine’s Day and other holidays and events, it seems I am perpetually behind the eight ball. I can’t stand being one of those people fighting the crowds at the last minute for things like Halloween candy and costumes, back-to-school supplies and Valentines. I’ve found that if I plan ahead and watch prices and availability, Walgreens can meet many of those needs AND compete on price. Lately, I’ve also been using technology for good (rather than for evil, as I had always done in the past…) to aid me in organizing my life in a number of ways.

I’m pleased to report that I had all of our Valentine’s Day goodies in hand and ready to go (by January 31!) thanks to Walgreens. Here are the details of my shopping, and here”s what I accomplished:

1. School Valentines: Picked up some special printer paper, Sharpies and bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups (on sale) at Walgreens, printed some adorable (free!) Valentines from GetButtonedUp.com for the third grader’s classmates, and she cut them out and prepped them. Of course, there are tons of cute cards available at Walgreens as well, but she wanted to try something different this year – mission accomplished!

By the way, total prep time for me: thirty minutes, including driving to and from the store with two kids in tow, picking up other items on my list AND printing the cards. I set everything up on the table and my daughter spent a few minutes after school on several afternoons to cut out, sign and attach the remaining Reese’s after I swiped and devoured mumbleseveralmumble. So cute.

2. Special Valentines for teachers & friends: I uploaded a cute pic of my third grader to the Walgreens Mobile App and then checked out the 14 Gifts of Love for Valentine’s Day promotion, found a great discount code and made the photo into an adorable little owl card, which was ready for pick up two miles from my house (at the corner of Happy & Healthy) at the Walgreens Photo counter… 36 minutes from the time I hit “submit.”

3. Family Valentines: Oh, don’t worry – I’m not normally together enough to even get the elementary school student to school with her Valentines, much less send them to family members! But this year, thanks to the Walgreens Mobile App, Walgreens Photo and the great fortune we had to make friends with a photographer, we have cute family cards. (P.S. if you live in northwest Arkansas or think it is reasonable to commute here for family photographs, be aware that we showed up looking crazy and said photographer made us look like a semi-normal family!)

4. Gift for my husband: Back around Christmas, I put together a fun canvas wall hanging for my husband which was intended to be like a gallery wall, but without all the multiple items to hang. Thanks to Walgreens Photo, I scored discounts on enlargements and finally have the photos printed and ready to affix to the gift with some mats. I even framed up some photos of the girls with frames and some chocolates I picked up at Walgreens!

Best of all? Once I applied the discount from my Walgreens Balance Rewards along with the aforementioned discounts, the entire endeavor was a steal.

Go check out the Walgreens mobile app and photo counter if you haven’t been in a while – they work together to make photo nirvana. And, Walgreens has a really adorable and helpful photo blog: SnapsByWalgreens.com. There are lots of daily deals in the 14 Days of Love for Valentine’s Day promotion going on this month!

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This content has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and Walgreens, but all opinions are always my own and I align with brands that earn my enthusiasm. #HappyHealthy #CBias #SocialFabric